Using the Cloud to Connect Citizens with Critical Services When They Need Them Most

More than 6.6 Million Americans contacted state unemployment agencies in March to file for unemployment benefits. As the COVID-19 pandemic caused a wave of businesses and industries to shut down across the nation, citizens spent many hours – sometimes days – trying to call their state government offices to apply for unemployment benefits.

For some callers who were able to get through, system crashes prevented them from completing their applications. Others waited hours to talk to a human, only to be disconnected when transferred. During a crisis, the last thing an anxious caller wants to hear is a busy signal or a message that directs them to call back later as they worry about how to pay their bills when they’ve just lost a job.

Many state agencies have taken steps to increase their call center capacity and staff in the past few weeks, but the projected further increase in jobless claims in the coming weeks and months may cause even more headaches for call center personnel and the citizens who are trying to reach out for help. Is your agency prepared to handle a massive increase in call volume due to an unfortunate event, disaster or pandemic?

Since the beginning of the global crisis, Avaya has successfully helped customers deal with extremely high COVID-19 related call volumes using our Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) – a cloud-based solution that can quickly increase an agency’s ability to respond to huge increases in call center volume while reducing the impact on the premise-based contact center. Our flexible solutions, services and tools can resolve your high-volume contact center inquiries faster, free up your staff to focus on more important issues, and deliver real-time engagement between your call center employees and citizens to provide the assistance they need, when they need it, and on the device they prefer.

What is CPaaS?

CPaaS is a cloud-based platform that enables real-time communications features like voice, video and messaging to be added to virtually any application (i.e. web, mobile, voice) without needing to build any backend infrastructure. CPaaS delivers communications as consumable cloud services so agencies can address constantly changing needs surrounding communications, collaboration, and customer experience in a more agile way.

Callers receive up-to-the-minute information without being passed to multiple agents

Intuitive AI enables agents to quickly find the right answers to citizens’ questions

Mass Notification

Disseminates important information to large groups instantly

Enables mass event notification services

Ready-to-Deploy Solutions

Avaya CPaaS-based solutions are flexible and can be set up quickly, over the top of any call control platform in a matter of hours or days, not weeks or months. They are scalable and burstable to manage millions of callers, giving your agency the agility it needs to meet constituent needs.

AI Bots respond to questions and calls that can be transferred as needed

Avaya AI Virtual Agent -- Developed with Google Cloud

Voice/Text-enabled service for Covid19 Information helps overwhelmed call centers to properly service customers

A low-cost lightweight service that can be turned up in hours

With uncertain times ahead, you can be assured that Avaya is dedicated to providing the agile service your agency needs to meet the rapidly evolving requirements you currently face. Our cloud CPaaS team is ready to assist you with implementing instant solutions to meet your needs during the COVID-19 global crisis.

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Jerry Dotson

Jerry Dotson is the Vice President for Avaya Public Sector. Dotson oversees the design and implementation of communication services to support the various operations of DoD, Civilian, Intel, and SLED customers.